Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Taiwan’s dollar touched a two-week
high as local stocks rallied after the unemployment rate in the
U.S., the island’s second-biggest export market, dropped to a
five-year low. Government bonds advanced.

The Taiex index jumped 0.9 percent, the most since Oct. 15,
after data released Dec. 6 showed the U.S. jobless rate fell to
7 percent as employers added 203,000 positions in November,
beating the 185,000 median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of
economists. The Bloomberg-JPMorgan Asia Dollar Index gained 0.4
percent last week, the most in two months.

“The stock market jumped after the strong U.S. employment
data,” said Samson Tu, a Taipei-based fund manager at Uni-President Assets Management Corp. “Asian currencies have
stabilized recently and investors are becoming more optimistic
about riskier assets, which has given some support for emerging-market currencies.”

Taiwan’s dollar strengthened 0.1 percent to NT$29.630
against the greenback, prices from Taipei Forex Inc. show. It
rose as much as 0.4 percent to NT$29.540 earlier, the strongest
level since Nov. 25. One-month non-deliverable forwards were
little changed at NT$29.520, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

The local dollar fell 0.2 percent in the last 18 minutes of
trading amid suspected central bank intervention. The monetary
authority has sold the local currency in the run-up to the close
on most days since March 2012, according to traders who asked
not to be identified.

Bonds Gain

Taiwan’s exports were unchanged from a year earlier in
November, data showed today, missing the median estimate for 2
percent growth in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Imports
contracted 0.5 percent, compared with a forecast 1.7 percent
increase.

The yield on the 1.75 percent sovereign bonds due September
2023 fell three basis points, or 0.03 percentage point, to 1.677
percent, according to Gretai Securities Market. That’s the
biggest drop since Nov. 27.

Similar-maturity Treasury yields slid from the highest in
almost three months on Dec. 6 after the U.S. released the
employment data. The Federal Reserve may give an indication on
when it will taper its bond purchases at its Dec. 17-18 meeting.

“Taiwan’s been watching the response of U.S. Treasuries,
which seem to indicate that the payrolls data wasn’t as bearish
as expected,” said Vince Lin, a bond trader at Concord
Securities Corp. in Taipei.

One-month implied volatility, a gauge of expected moves in
the exchange rate used to price options, decreased four basis
points to 3.20 percent. The overnight interbank lending rate was
steady at 0.387 percent, a weighted average compiled by the
Taiwan Interbank Money Center showed.